which boards will take 133 and allow for cheap upgrade?

[Bozo]

if i have this right the ELITE K7S5A board will take older pc100 or pc133 ram and newer dram. I am looking for a cheap route to upgrade and as i have loads of older ram lying around it would be nice to re-use some of it. Do any other boards have this option (still take both types) and will allow upgrading right up to athlon XP?

Would be on a budget which is why the elite appeals, cheap board and no need to buy new memory - leaving money for the processor and new power supply (or cheap case).

[MrP]

Bozo,

there arnt a huge amount of boards that do that. but one to consider is the PC Chips M841LMR

Its an all in one board (video, LAN and sound) and i just got one for £55 from the computer fair in manchester.

sems very quick, the only ( and ita a big only) problem is that it dosent have an AGP slot :(

hopefully newer revisions will have them, but for a seti machine its fine. First impressions are of a very quick machine even with a duron 750 in it.

am going to try and do a few benchmarks with it next weekend and throw a review of the system together

toodles:xsofa:

[Bozo]

cheers MrP

Never heard of that board (well dont know anything about it anyway) sounds reasonable. Although when turned on it would be crunching it will be a sort of multi puropose PC as the better half could use it to work on. Not sure whether i would need AGP or not, usually no, but then it would be a PC I could retreat to to play a game if she was on here.

Worth considering though.

[MrP]

Bozo,

OCUK are selling them for 65-70 quid

i havent had chance to see what the inbuilt graphics are like for gaming, but from what i have heard they should manage a half decent game of quake or unreal.

will try and run a few benchmarks (sandra, 3d mark, seti) and a few others over the weekend :)

toodles :xsofa:

[MrP]

Bozo,

just spotted this at DSLR, granted its only seti benchmarks, but might shed a bit more light on the matter for you

http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,3150318~root=seti~mode=flat

toodles :xsofa:

[Bozo]

Thx again MrP

interesting. Tempting, for a reletivley little outlay I could make a huge upgrade. Quite a jump from the p2 233 only thing is i need to get a power supply with 300 watts, but i could get a new case with 300 watt for around £30. How much difference do you think running std pc133 ram would make to those times? buying new pc2700 memory would add a fair bit to cost:(

Reason I was thinking elite is i saw one going cheap so i am still tempted to choose that one even though the other board has graphics as well.

[MrP]

i would guess that the times would be about an hour longer (rough guess from what i read on OCUK about them upgrading their stomp onster)

a stick of pc2100 from crucial would do fine, it would be a shame to effectivly nuter the board by making it run with pc133, but it would do for a few weeks untill you could afford the DDR

have a think, but asits all in one, its my choice at the mo, but i intend of getting a board with the KM266 (either the gigabyte GA-7VKML, or the EPoX 8kmm+) chipset soon and doing a comparison with that,

toodles :xsofa:

[MrP]

Originally posted by Bozo
only thing is i need to get a power supply with 300 watts

BTW, i am currently running the PC Chips with a duron 750 and a 235w PSU, will let you know if it crashes!

toodles :xsofa:

[KMS]

Hiya, the ECS K7S5A is probably the better of the two as its not as 'tamed' as the PCCHIPS and it overclocks a treat. The PCCHIPS are super stable boards as they run slower but as Mr P says no AGP which can put some folk off.